


In This Moment

by banditthewriter



Category: The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 15:35:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16835509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banditthewriter/pseuds/banditthewriter
Summary: When Eliot is at Brakebills, he casts his consciousness into the golem. Quentin is curious as to how that works.





	In This Moment

**Author's Note:**

> This is cross posted from tumblr under the same username. This was for the neitherlandslibrary's Trick or Treat! It’s my first try at a Queliot fic, first fic for The Magicians at all. This was gifted to cldfiredrgn on tumblr.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!

The movements of Quentin’s hands were jerky, fingers twitching with bottled up energy. Or anxiety. Or some strange combination of both that made him want to pace in order to release it. He wanted to pace, to scream, to do something other than sit on a somewhat comfortable couch in the cottage and try to perfect a spell that was supposed to cause a dust storm or an ice storm or some sort of hallucination that made everyone see elephants.

It didn’t matter what it was going to do, because he couldn’t stop thinking long enough to study the right positions and therefore any spell he tried would end up somehow worse. 

He wasn’t a brilliant magician. He wasn’t Alice, or Eliot, or, hell, Julia. He was mediocre, had his moments, but he wasn’t going to go down in history as the world’s greatest magician. He’d go down in history as someone who helped find Fillory and that was enough.

Except he was on a somewhat comfortable couch in the cottage practicing a spell for a class he might have already failed while his friends all did magnificent things.

That wasn’t the only thing on his mind. There was also the thing with Eliot. 

The thing being that he was stuck in Fillory, High King and all that, while everyone else was free to come and go. At least Margo had helped him make the golem so he could live in the other world for a short time. Quentin wasn’t sure how long that could last, but it was better than the alternative.

“That was dreadful,” the man in question taunted as he walked over to the couch, a drink in hand as he stared at Quentin. “I don’t know what spell you were trying, but I’m sure that wasn’t it.”

Quentin huffed as he tossed his book onto the coffee table, half embarrassed at being caught and half welcoming Eliot’s presence.

“How am I supposed to focus on school and classes when I know what’s really out there? Fillory is real and more than that, it’s in trouble.”

Eliot waved the hand not holding the glass, sitting down on the couch near Quentin. He shook his head as he turned a bit so that they were facing each other.

“I know this is going to sound strange coming from me, but that’s exactly why you need to focus on school. I know,” he said as Quentin opened his mouth, “that I’m saying this as someone who should be in class right now, but that’s different because I said so.”

Quentin could feel the beginning of a smile tugging on his lips as he asked, “Because you said so?”

“High King,” Eliot reminded with a shrug. 

“You’re High King of Fillory, not Brakebills,” he said incredulously, a smile taking over his face.

After a beat where Eliot tried to hide his own smile by drinking from his almost empty glass, he leaned forward conspiratorially towards Quentin.

“I like to think that my rule transcends other realities,” he said with a serious nod.

The moment was broken when Eliot could barely stop giggling. Both of them laughed, relaxing a bit more into the couch as they each turned back to their thoughts. Quentin had forgotten what spell he had been trying, felt the pressure lift off his chest in a way that only happened when Eliot was nearby.

And Eliot? He was enjoying a moment with Q without some drama or other interrupting. Of course the evening was still early. 

“Margo in Fillory?” 

The question jerked Eliot from his thoughts and he glanced over at Quentin, nodding.

“There’s some unrest on one of the borders and we thought one of us should be there at all times until it’s settled. It was her turn to deal with the people.”

Quentin tugged his feet onto the couch, turning to face Eliot completely. He resembled some sort of pretzel and Eliot quickly banished the memory of how bendy Q could be.

“So you sleep there and cast your mind into, well,” and he gestured to Eliot as if not to remind him that this wasn’t his real body. “Can you be awake in both places?”

“Technically, yes,” Eliot said as he put his glass down on the coffee table, turning to Quentin and letting his hand rest on Q’s knee, “but that’s a sticky situation. That’s why Margo’s life force was being drained with the Margolem. If I’m asleep while I’m here, all of my life force is here and therefore no draining.”

“But you’re real? You can eat, drink, bleed? Do… other things?”

The pause before ‘other things’ was telling, but Eliot ignored that for the obvious. He looked pointedly at the drink on the table and then back to Q to wait for it to sink in.

“Oh,” he said as if he just put it together. “Yeah, stupid… stupid question.”

There was a lapse in the conversation there, one that both of them would remember for different reasons. Eliot would remember it because he couldn’t stop thinking about that damn pause. Quentin would remember it because of what he was about to ask.

“Does being here in the golem nullify your marriage vows?”

Well. Eliot felt a little like someone had sucked all of the oxygen from the room. There was a spell for that; he saw it one of the restricted books and he had memorized the hand movements but had never used it. 

“I have, uh, not tested that yet. I assume since I’m able to be here, it’s a viable workaround for all of my Fillorian restrictions.”

“But you haven’t tested it?”

Was that hope in Quentin’s voice? He wanted to clear his throat and try again, to maybe not seem so eager and desperate. 

And Eliot? Eliot was once again taken back. It seemed like Q was determined to never be predictable. 

“I like Fen,” Eliot said, somewhat off topic. “She’s nice and a little naive, but she’s… Fen. But I made the sacrifice, agreed to be the High King, because it’s what we needed. It’s what I needed.” Here he looked down at his hands, saw where his thumb was rubbing against Q’s knee. “I guess I don’t want to take the chance that it isn’t going to work for just anyone.”

Eliot’s voice had gone soft in a way that Quentin hadn’t heard before. Or maybe he had, in times of desperation and pain. When Quentin was distraught or when Margo was overwhelmed or… Eliot took care of everyone, although he usually did it in his own way. 

It made Quentin wonder when was the last time that someone took care of Eliot?

“And what if,” began Quentin quietly, growing more confident with every word, “there was a person that wasn’t just anyone?”

Eliot’s tongue darted out to flick across his bottom lip, trying not to smile when Q followed the path with his eyes.

“Then I guess I would want to make sure that this person who isn’t just anyone is on the same page as I am. Because last time this happened, things kind of blew up in our faces.”

Quentin sighed, shifting his body a little closer to Eliot’s as their eyes met.

“Last time was different. Last time was with bottling our emotions and the adrenaline from facing The Beast and I was with Alice and Margo was there. This time?” His fingers tentatively wrapped around Eliot’s. “This time we are on the same page.”

They were. Eliot could see it in Q’s eyes, could feel it in the way his fingers drifted gently up his wrist and over his forearm, wrapping around his elbow to tug him closer.

There was a moment, a brief pause in time, where both of them waited. They waited for some concrete sign that this was right, that this was not going to break things even more than they had already been broken. But when the sky didn’t fall down around them, they both breathed out in unison.

And then Eliot leaned forward, his mouth pressing against Quentin’s in what could only be considered a chaste kiss. As if they both remembered that hey, they’ve made each other orgasm, the kiss got heavy and desperate. Eliot’s fingers found themselves twisted in Quentin’s hair, tugging just enough to draw a gasp from the younger man. Quentin was perched on his knees, leaning down over Eliot to change the angle. 

The kiss softened as Quentin made a noise, one arm slung around Eliot’s shoulders. They both needed to breathe but neither seemed inclined to end the kiss first.

Finally Eliot pulled back, panting even as he pressed his forehead to Quentin’s.

“I guess what answers that,” Quentin joked, his voice wrecked.

“That it does.” Eliot made a noise as he pulled Quentin into his chest. “I’ll have to wake up in Fillory soon; High King duties.”

Quentin nodded, his hand playing with Eliot’s curls.

“You’ll wake up in Fillory, but this won’t have been a dream. That’s the important part.”

Eliot smiled that little half smile that he reserved for Quentin’s absurdness, leaning in to press another soft kiss to his lips.

“Before I go,” he said suggestively. As Quentin’s eyes widened, Eliot rolled his own and leaned forward to grab the book that had been discarded when he had sat down. “No king of Fillory is going to fail a class. I’ll show you the right way.”

Instead of being disappointed, Quentin accepted the help that was being offered gratefully. Eliot was a very talented magician, even if he didn’t take himself too seriously when it came to classes. And it meant spending more time with him. He flipped to the page that he had been studying.

“I’m a King of Fillory but I still have to study,” Quentin complained with a hidden smile even as he rested the book on their legs, preparing his hands for the first position.

“You’re too hard on yourself Q,” teased Eliot as he brushed his nose against his hairline. “I seem to remember you being very good with your hands.”

The joke put them both at ease. Q went through the motions with Eliot, perfecting his Poppers as he tried to complete the spell. 

Quentin couldn’t help but think that he had been wrong before. Finding Fillory and then going back to Brakebills hadn’t been the hard part; the hard part was having the fantasy of Eliot come true only to have to go back to reality. 

As Eliot threw his head back and laughed in joy as a tree started to grow in the middle of the cottage, Quentin’s spell finally being correct, he couldn’t help but think that this was better than Fillory and being High King. This right here, a breathless moment of happiness, of creation rather than the usual destruction.

No matter what came next, they had this moment.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
